Wireless communications systems have provided great flexibility and freedom to users. No longer are users needlessly tied to fixed access locations in order to communicate, share information, and so forth, effectively and rapidly. Instead, the users, through the use of a mobile device or mobile node, may be free to move practically anywhere within a coverage area of the wireless communications system and still be able to communicate, access information, and so on. The mobile nodes provide a degree of mobility to the users.
Mobility management may be used in cellular networks, wide area networks, as well as other wireless networks. Manufacturers and operators of wireless communications systems have developed mobility management protocols to enable and optimize handovers and/or handoffs from one network to another, to maximize a coverage area of a particular environment or network made up of number of smaller wireless communications networks.
Normally, each mobile node (MN) may have its own Internet Protocol (IP) address. The IP address is used to transmit between the mobile node and another device. In order to serve a mobile device while it is travelling (or roaming) from its home network (HN) to a visited network (VN), Mobile IP has been proposed by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) to allow mobile nodes to move between networks while maintaining a permanent IP address.
A version of Mobile IP is Mobile IP version 6 (MIPv6). In a MIPv6 based communication system, a mobile node has a home address (HoA) assigned to it when it initially attached to its HN. When the mobile node changes its location and moves into a VN, it receives a care-of address (CoA) from the VN. In a MIPv6 mobile network, the mobile node then sends a binding update to a home agent (HA) in its HN. The binding update causes the HA to establish a binding between the HoA and the CoA. Subsequently, the HN forwards data packets destined for the mobile node's HoA to the mobile node's current CoA.
However, routing traffic through the HA to the mobile node when the mobile node is in the VN may lead to an unnecessarily longer route, fraught with extended delays, increased latency, greater probability for errors, increased resource utilization, and so on. Therefore, there is a need for a system and method for supporting mobile node mobility that can shorten the routing of traffic to the mobile node when it is in the VN.